PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — Listen carefully, and you’ll hear absolutely nothing in the West Klosterman Preserve in Tarpon Springs, and that’s the way the West Klosterman Preservation Group wants it to stay.

“If you walk past here at night, there’s flying squirrels. We see the gopher tortoises walking around. You’ll see a fox once in a while. There’s just all kinds of neat critters,” said Brad Husserl, chairman of the WK Preservation Group, Inc. 

The 14-acre land is untouched and home to more than 60 threatened or endangered species of plants and animals.

The group, also known as WKPG, worries that will all be lost if it is taken over by developers.

“They will plan on bringing the bulldozers out here, and when I say clear cut, we’ll be looking from here 14 acres away at yellow sand and nothing else,” said Husserl.

Right now, the land is owned by the Pinellas County School District.

The district planned to sell it to a developer whose idea was to build up to 90 multifamily homes on the property, until concerned citizens got together to form WKPG.

Now the district is giving WKPG up until July 1, 2022, to raise the money—$3.2 million to be exact—to purchase and save the land.

“We’ve got about seven months left from right now, so we are getting a little nervous because time is going too quick that we can see the light at the end of the tunnel and we don’t have the funds yet,” said Husserl.

They’re 10% of the way there, but still have about $3 million more to go.

The group is accepting donations.

WKPG says if they are able to raise the funds to purchase the land, their plan is to donate it back to Pinellas County Parks and Recreation.

Ideally, they would like it to remain untouched, but wouldn’t be against opening the land to the public as well.​